


The Hawk, The Widow and The Suit

by gunpowder_and_pearls



Series: Clint Barton oneshots! [5]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Natasha, BAMF Phil, Drugs, Fury fucked up, Hurt Clint, Hurt/Comfort, IT'S IMPORTANT OKAY, Multi, Phil's pen, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Phil Coulson, Team Delta, Tortured Clint, Worried Team Delta, captured Clint, not really - Freeform, sensory fuckery, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gunpowder_and_pearls/pseuds/gunpowder_and_pearls
Summary: Clint Barton officially went missing on September 15, at approximately 9:03 AM, Pacific Standard Time, on a mission in Istanbul, Turkey.Natasha Romanoff and Phil Coulson have just been notified of this after coming out of a deep undercover mission, two months later.And they are furious.They are coming for the people who took their partner and if they laid a finger on him, they will rip them apart.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanov, Phil Coulson/Clint Barton, Phil Coulson/Natasha Romanov
Series: Clint Barton oneshots! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1520786
Comments: 20
Kudos: 188





	1. Chapter 1

Clint Barton officially went missing on September 15, at approximately 9:03 AM, Pacific Standard Time, on a mission in Istanbul, Turkey. 

Natasha Romanoff and Phil Coulson have just been notified of this after coming out of a deep undercover mission, two months later. 

And they are furious. 

They are coming for the people who took their partner and if they laid a finger on him, they will rip them apart.

* * *

_Two Months Ago_

_Istanbul [Exact Location Unknown]_

It’s the cold that wakes him first. 

Or maybe it was the lack of clothes. 

Stripped to his boxers and strung up by his wrists, Clint is shivering so hard it’s a wonder the men around him haven’t noticed he’s awake yet. It might have something to do with the stupidly cliché basements that all of the groups on SHIELD’s watch list seem to have, or maybe it’s to do with the flickering LED lights above him. 

For all he knows, they all had some sort of vision impairment. He isn’t about to assume, that’d be hypocritical. 

Eyes barely slitted, Clint lets his gaze slide around the room slowly, taking in every detail he can. Three men stand by the door, hands resting on guns that are strapped to their thighs, a rifle across each of their backs. A security camera is positioned to point directly at Clint, and another in the opposite corner of the room is focused on the only exit he has. Tiny speakers sit underneath each camera, which means they’re either recording both sound and view, or his target of the week is planning to tell Clint all about what they’re going to do to him. 

He’s hoping it’s the second one, because the more he hears from the man in charge, the more material he has to work with to plan an escape. 

Clint knows that he’s been left here. It was supposed to be a milk run, but they had wildly underestimated the target. The man had worked his way on to their lists simply by being a nuisance. Petty robberies of shipments going in and out of cities, tiny drug rings that disappear at the first hint of trouble, and the newest development, firearm dealing. 

It was a quick in-and-out, Clint as lookout with a sniper rifle in hand, and their ground agent going in to take down the leader. 

It hadn’t gone like that. 

They’d been woefully unprepared for the hordes of black-clad people who rushed the entrances of the building they’d been targeting, effectively blocking Agent Harris in with no escape. Clint had been forced to scramble from his position as fast as he could, taking down anyone who got in the way. 

Agent Harris had just gotten to the safehouse, with Clint a few blocks away, when they caught up to him. He’d gone down like a sack of rocks after an elbow slammed into his neck, and hadn’t gotten back up. 

A boot descending to his head was the last thing he saw before stars took over his vision and it all had turned black. 

Now, with all his senses rapidly returning to him, he almost wishes he was still unconscious. The lights are becoming too bright and every even breath he draws in burns with the scent of metal and sweat. He’s hyper aware of the metal pulling at his wrists, biting into his skin in all the wrong places, and without the ringing in his ears- _from the boot to the head maybe?_ -he can hear the loud breaths of the men across the room. 

_I’ve gotta be drugged. There’s no way I’m just feeling like this on my own._ Maybe it’s affecting his thought process too. It feels like the thoughts are pushing their way through cotton balls. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes before the door slides open, but he spends it forcing breaths through his nose and drowning in the thud of his heartbeat. His eyes are almost shut and he’s adjusted himself as much as he could without being too obvious to keep the metal off of his skin. 

The harsh sound of the door being moved almost makes his head snap up, his ears ringing with the avalanche of added sounds that drift through the entrance until it’s closed again. 

_Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me._

The man that crosses the room is none other than Levi Schulpe, the ringleader of a tiny organization that should’ve been barely a blip in their timeline of missions. 

He walks over slowly, gaze running up and down Hawkeye, and Clint knows that they would’ve known he was something more if they’d gotten a look at his eyes. Someone who runs low-level rings of drugs and weapons are never anything more than people who didn’t have the balls to do more. The man who’s standing in front of Clint is more than they’d ever expected. 

With a gleam in his deep-set eyes and a slink in his step, he looks like a predator, and Clint feels like the prey. 

“Agent Barton, I presume?” He sounds as if they’d come across each other in a coffee shop, or ended up in the same aisle of a grocery store, but his expression doesn’t match his tone. He’s eyeing Clint like he knows exactly what he wants to break. “It’s a real pleasure meeting you, truly.” 

_He shouldn’t even know my name._

“The hell are you?” Clint’s tongue feels heaving in his mouth and he can barely get his jaw to cooperate in forming the words. 

_I’m really on the good stuff, aren’t I?_

“Well, Agent Barton, that is really none of your concern, is it?” Schulpe’s voice grates on Clint’s ears and he holds back a wince. 

“Ah,” the man says, the corners of his lips pulling up. “I see you’re feeling the effects of our new drug. It merely increases sensory input, but depending on the environment, it can be quite agonizing.” He glances around the room before looking back at Clint. “Why don’t we see how long you can last?”

_What?_ “Really,” Clint slurs out between numb lips. “You’re gonna go with the terrible movie line that’s always followed with an overdone torture scene?” He rolls his head to the right, angling it so that the lights aren’t as harsh on his eyes. “I don’t know how else to tell you this but...you need some more material.”

Schulpe snorts. “I’m not the one chained to a wall, am I, Hawkeye?”

_How the fuck…?_ A D-list target shouldn’t know his code name. He shouldn’t have even known Clint’s last name. The fog is slowly clearing from his head and with it comes the confirmation that this man is definitely not who they thought he was. Clint should’ve realised that the moment he was called _Agent Barton_. 

Clint almost lets the words leave his mouth, the ones demanding to know who he is, the ones asking who he works for, but that’s a rookie mistake. And Hawkeye has been in the business far too long to fuck up that badly. 

_If the enemy thinks you aren’t afraid, they’ll slip up. They always do._

The man leaves the room without looking back, and without cue the three guards follow. The door slides shut behind them, blocking out the brief roar of noise that comes from the hallway, and Clint sags in relief at the lack of sound. 

Then the lights begin to flicker. 

They grow steadily brighter, occasionally dropping down to darkness before jumping back to a blinding level of light. Each change feels adds to the stinging in his eyes, and soon he’s blinking through tears as he keeps them open. He’s not going to be caught unawares if they plan to rush him while he’s incapitated. 

A steady buzzing begins to fill the room, and at first Clint thinks that maybe he’s imagining it, but his eyes flick the speakers that are drilled to the walls. The sound works its way into his ears, and Clint bites back a groan when the discomfort begins to feel like someone has taken a drill to each side of his head. 

Each gasp that hisses out between his gritted teeth sends a shudder down Clint’s spine as his brain struggles to sift through the sensory input.

“How are you doing in there, Agent Barton?” Clint snarls up at the ceiling and then moans at the pain it sends lancing through his head. The man laughs. “I’ll keep that in mind, then,” he says, as if Clint had listed his symptoms and he was writing them down. 

The buzzing grows louder and louder, until all he can hear is white noise and the all-consuming thud of his heartbeat, which gets faster each passing second. 

A shudder runs through him again, and he curls in on himself, only to jerk as white hot pain shoots from his wrists down his body. 

_Those fucking cuffs!_

The pain returns, and with it the cold. It begins to seep into him, down to his bones, and if there wasn’t electricity running through him at the same time, Clint’s sure he’d have bit his own tongue off with chattering teeth by now. 

_Instead, I get to worry about biting it off while I jerk around from electric shock._

The roaring in his ears almost overcomes the boiling that has begun in his veins- _people can’t last very long on this level of electricity_ -and he swears he can feel hot liquid begin to run down the side of his face. 

Maybe it’s hours, maybe only seconds later, but the buzzing cuts off suddenly, quickly followed by whatever electrical current they’d had going pausing as well. Clint involuntarily sags against the bonds holding him up, and he can almost hear Nat’s voice in his head, telling him to not show weakness. That it was the quickest way to lose after you’ve been captured. 

_God, Nat and Phil. They’ve gotta be worried out of their minds._ Team Delta has never been separated before, except for milk runs or missions where the parameters only pertain to one of their skill sets, and for good reason. They were nearly unstoppable on their own, but together they had tore down empires that SHIELD had been chipping away at for years. And they did it so quietly that no one would be aware until they were already crumbling. 

They were legends in the hallways of every academy and base associated with SHIELD and when word got around that they were being sent on different missions the whispers in the canteens and classes hadn’t died down for weeks. 

Fury had sent his partners on a deep-cover mission, all the way over in Romania, but if Fury knew how important Clint was to them, _and he knows everything,_ he’d tell them right away. Most likely they’d ask to be pulled out and put on the search teams, but Fury would say no and that he had his best teams on it. 

Phil hates feeling useless, had hated it since Clint had met him. Phil’s biggest fear was that someone would get hurt- _or killed_ -and he wouldn’t be able to stop it. It had already happened before and now, it was happening to Clint. 

Phil would probably rip Fury limb from limb if he wasn’t told. 

Nat was different. Raised in the Red Room, she’d been taught to cut her losses, and that everyone who ever worked with her would too. She’d been proven wrong within the first year of her working with SHIELD, when both Clint and Phil came bursting through to the room she was being held in, and ripped the men apart. 

She can’t bear to leave someone behind, least of all either of her partners. Clint can’t wait to be told about what she did when she found out he’d been taken. 

He misses them. 

It’s like a punch to the gut. It’s been so long since he’s had someone to miss, let alone two someones. 

It’s only been a week or so since he’s seen them, since he’d waved to their plane as they took off to Europe, but he misses the curve of Phil’s mouth when he’s trying _so hard_ not to smile but failing anyway. He misses the warmth of Natasha as they sleep underneath the covers, her legs tangled with his. 

He misses the knowledge that they’re right behind him and that they’ve got his back for the entirety of whatever mission they’d been given.

He misses them so much that it’s like an ache in his chest and a knot in his stomach has formed from the sheer need to see them.

The door slides open again and Clint is pulled from his thoughts, stuffing them away into a tiny nook in his mind. He can’t afford to be distracted right now. 

“And how are you doing now, Agent Barton?” Schulpe strolls in slowly, a smile spreading across his face as he looks Clint over. 

Clint can’t stop trembling, no matter how hard he tries, and he’s about eighty percent sure that the itch growing on his face is drying blood. 

“Been better.” Clint smirks slightly. “Gonna have to go with two stars on yelp for this one, though.” He tilts his head instead of waving a hand. “Unreliable power, low accommodations for rooming preferences, and let’s not even bring up the homey atmosphere that is nowhere to be found.” 

Schulpe sneers and stops a few feet from Clint. “Don’t you worry, Hawkeye. You won’t be here for much longer. And really, we aren’t targeting you. We’re targeting little miss Widow.”

_What the fuck._ “Damn, you guys are really more stupid then I thought. You think you can get the Widow through me? Let alone, get _the Widow_?” Clint snorts. “You people are idiots.”

“We could say the same for you, Agent Barton.” Schulpe frowns condescendingly. “We thought you had heard of the Red Room.”

_Oh shit._

_I’m so fucked.  
  
_

* * *

_November 16, 9:50 AM_

_Location Classified_

Phil has never been more relieved to step off a plane in his life. The mission had taken far longer than he would’ve liked, if only because missing a member of his team was like missing a limb. 

Pretending to be a middle-aged couple who’d decided to _‘turn to a new chapter’_ wasn’t difficult, and pretending to be ridiculously infatuated with each other wasn’t even faked, but the comforting weight that usually lay between Phil and Nat was missing, and Phil would catch himself rolling over to reach for Clint, only to touch Natasha instead. 

All he wants to do now is curl up with both of his partners and watch Die Hard and Dexter until they fall asleep on the couch. 

Breathing in fresh air is also a relief, if only because he’s spent so much time on airplanes that he can tell when the air has been recycled. Natasha is only a few paces behind him as they cross the landing deck to head inside, eyes fixed on the door as if she’s expecting to see Clint leaning against a window, smiling out at them. 

After all the times that that _did_ happen, Phil can feel a little knot of worry forming in his throat. _He could’ve been sent on a mission again,_ he tries to reassure himself, _he could be down at the range and lost track of time._

They’re always told when another one of them is sent on a mission as a matter of security. The last time Natasha wasn’t informed, she ripped SHIELD’s database apart looking for the reports on Phil and Clint’s whereabouts. 

None of them could find it within themselves to apologize for the damage sustained. 

It was standard procedure for an agent to be informed if their partner is leaving base on a mission. Typically, in-base relationships are not allowed, but ending theirs would mean ending Team Delta, and SHIELD hadn’t seen the likes of Team Delta since Director Carter herself. 

They’re barely through the door when they’re met with the scowling face of one Nicholas Fury, flanked by Sitwell and Hill and either side of him. 

The knot in his stomach grows bigger. 

“Coulson. Romanov.” His voice is as impassive as ever. “I need to speak with the two of you.”

Natasha frowns slightly but it’s covered up too quickly for Phil to figure out what it means. “Where is Clint?” She says, and Fury hesitates.

Phil can feel his heart jump to his throat. 

“That is what we’re going to discuss,” Fury answers coolly and leads the way to an empty conference room, the kind Phil had been in millions of times before, to debrief a mission or plan a route before starting. The director heads to the front of the room and picks up the file that had been resting on the table. 

“This,” he says, waving the file to elaborate, “Is everything we know about the last mission Hawkeye was sent on.”

Phil waits for him to continue, but when nothing else is said, he frowns. “And where,” he says quietly, a growl edging his words, “Is Hawkeye now?” Because if Fury responds with _we don’t know_ or _he’s been captured,_ then Phil isn’t sure what he might do. The agreement for Team Delta being seperated was that there was no interaction with AIM for Hawkeye and no Red Room for Natasha, if either of them are going in without their standard backup. 

And there is no other organization that has the means to take Hawkeye but AIM. Red Room isn’t a problem, as they have no need to care about him. If AIM has taken Hawkeye then they need to act fast. The last time they got their hands on him hadn’t been pretty. 

Coulson isn’t letting that happen again. 

Seeing that Phil wasn’t going to take the lead, Natasha steps forward slightly, the narrowing of her eyes the only sign of emotion on her otherwise impassive face. 

Phil had only seen that expression a few select times. Once, when they’d all been taken by surprise and captured, she’d been forced to listen to both Clint and Phil’s screams while being interrogated. She’d torn the place apart single handedly. 

The only other time he’d seen it was a few years back, when an old enemy from her past had shown up on their radar, massacring both civilians and rivals alike for fun. 

She’d died quickly, but certainly not painlessly. 

“And when was he sent on that mission?” Her voice is edged with danger, and Phil would be lying if he said it didn’t make him smile.

“Two months ago.”

“And when was he extracted?” 

Hill and Sitwell are subtly edging closer to the doors, as if to dodge the shitstorm that Phil knows is about to explode. 

“Never.”

_Never._

Phil must have sustained some type of hearing damage from his mission because he _knows_ that Fury couldn’t have just said that to his face. He tells his boss so and Fury’s face screws up in the closest semblance to an apologetic expression that Phil has ever seen on his face. 

“Cheese…”

“Shut the fuck up,” Coulson spits, snarling. “You lost our _partner_ . You _let_ him get taken, and you haven’t done a _damn thing_ about it.” Hill and Sitwell have successfully reached the doors and they look seconds away from calling backup, as if they think that Phil is about to launch himself at Fury.

At this point, he’s seriously considering it. 

Losing one of his partners has never really happened. There had been close calls in the past but Phil had never _lost_ one of them. 

Not like this. 

“And when, _exactly_ , did you lose him?” Natasha is smiling slightly, an edge to her expression that would send any smart man sprinting in the opposite direction. 

No one ever claimed Fury to be smart.

Clever, sure. 

Intimidating? Skilled? Definitely. 

But smart, in the face of a Widow’s smile? Never. 

“Three days into his mission he was taken.”

Phil could’ve heard a pin drop after Fury closed his mouth. “What.” His voice is raw and he swallows convulsively. “And you decided to tell us now. After two months of you _not knowing where he is_.”

“Your mission was too important. SHIELD couldn’t afford to have you distracted.”

“Why not extract us?” Nat asks cooly, one eyebrow raised. “Why not pull us out and let us search for him?”

Fury frowns. “The mission was too important.” He levels a glare at Natasha. “I’d think that you, Agent Romanov, would understand that.”

Natasha lets out a growl at that, eyebrows and body angled murderously towards Fury. “Don’t speak to me like I don’t understand,” she grits out, a russian lilt weaving into her words as she loosens the leash on her emotions. “I know how important that mission was. What I also know is how important _Clint_ is to me. That mission,” she continues, “Was not as important as you are pretending it was. It could’ve been rescheduled. The search for our _missing partner_ is not nearly as important as gathering intel on some second-rate crime boss out in Romania who barely knows a gun from his own _ass_.” 

Phil takes the lead again. “Who took him?” Both Fury and Natasha freeze, and the Widow’s fists clench, her bites beginning to crackle dangerously on her wrists. “Who took him?” Phil repeats, and watches the director take a fortifying breath before answering. 

“Associates of the Red Room.” 

Phil sucks in a breath, startled, and hears Natasha beside him do the same. “Why,” he breaths. _How could they have found out our relationship? They’re getting back at Natasha, trying to draw her in and take her out of the picture, but how in the world do they know that Clint is the perfect bait to use? A mole? If SHIELD has a mo-_

“From what our intel tells us, they’ve seen your last few missions and decided that the fact that Agent Romanoff over here has taken a partner on her team, means that she is emotionally attached.” Fury eyes the both of them. “They are not aware of your relationship in its entirety.” 

“How did they know that Clint would be on a mission without us?” Natasha cocks her head. “If we have a mole-”

“I assure you, there is no mole. Just a chance interaction where you ended up not being there.” Fury smiles grimly. “We believe they were planning on taking you both, but with only Agent Barton in on the scene, they did what they had to do, and possibly changed their plans to be a trap instead of a capture.” 

Phil lets a snarl escape his mouth and begins to pace, hands clenched at his sides. “I want full access to all our intel on Clint’s capture.” 

Fury nods quickly. “Done.”

“I want full access to any and all contacts who have the possibility of being able to point us in his direction.”

“Done.” The director doesn’t hesitate, and Phil sees Natasha grin slightly in satisfaction. 

“And I want Natasha and I on the ground, searching, until we find him.”

Fury pauses and Phil whirls to face him. “You will not get anything productive out of us until we find our partner alive and well. Until then,” Phil bares his teeth. “You will let us be _on the ground,_ searching for our _missing partner._ ” 

Fury raises an eyebrow. “And if he’s not alive or well when you find him?”

Natasha speaks up, in a tone that promises vengeance and retribution of any pain caused to Clint. “Then we tear them to pieces and burn the Red Room to the ground.” 


	2. Chapter 2

_November 19, 8:44 PM_

_Istanbul (Exact Location Classified)_

Clint is awake again. 

_Or am I?_

He feels like he’s drifting through fog, each blink heavily weighed down by the dew that’s collected on his eyelids. Clawing his way out of the abyss he’s stuck in feels almost impossible. 

He’d been moved into a different room a while ago, he isn’t sure _exactly_ when, but it was six guard rotations and five meals ago, so it had been more than a day. It had been part of his mandatory training to learn to keep track of time without any discernible timemarks. 

Nat would be disappointed if she could see him. 

Schulpe had grown steadily angrier as the days passed and there was not a single lick of information about the Widow even being active. Clint could remember laughing as his captor ranted and raved, then coughing when he’d slammed a fist into his stomach. Over and over again. 

_Over and over and over again, again again again._

_1-2-3-4, breathe. 1-2-3-4, breathe._

He’d lost the advantage of his lockpicking fingers a few days after his capture. They’d snapped like pencils under the constant pressure of one of Schulpes’ lackey’s hands, and Clint had laughed then choked on his cries when they began on the other hand. 

They’d snapped like pencils. 

_Thumb first, pointer finger next, middle finger following, index finger afterwards, and pinky last. One after the other after the other after the other after the other. After the other._

_1-2-3-4, wince, breathe. 1-2-3-cough-4, wince, breathe._

Schuple had begun to experiment with his sensory-input affecting drugs a little bit ago. The ringing in his ears blocks out the sounds around him, and he’s sure he’d be far more worried about that if he was able to actually comprehend what that meant. _Maybe the drugs haven’t worn off yet._ The sound is the only constant after so many weeks of a pain filled haze. He isn’t sure if he is grateful for it or not. 

The blindfold has been on for several days, or long enough for Schulpe to visit again. Clint isn’t sure. 

The man hadn’t left until the ropes holding him up were adjusted in a way that Clint’s shoulder was forced out of its socket. 

_“Is that enough? Have you had enough?” Another pull. “Have you had enough yet?” Another pull on the ropes. And another and another and another. Another another another._

His throat is still raw from screaming and his blindfold is damp with the involuntary tears that had streamed down his face. 

_1-2-shudder-3-4, wince, breathe. 1-2-3-hiss-4, wince, breathe._

Clint isn’t sure how much longer he can take this. He knows, of course, that he won’t break, _he won’t,_ because he has no doubt that his partners are tearing the underworld apart looking for him. 

It’s just that, Schulpe seems to have figured out his aversion to fire. It’s due to either the scars that adorned his upper arms and shoulders or because of the full body flinch Clint had been unable to hide when lighters had been brought up.

Clint blames it on the fact that he’d been unable to figure out what was being brought up while reading lips and therefore had been unable to catch most of the sentence, eyes only reading the words ‘ _lighter_ ’ and ‘ _fun_ ’ and ‘ _sight_ ’. 

Fire brings back far too many memories that he’d pushed down with the too many beer bottles and bar fights he’d picked over the years. He isn’t sure he wants them brought back to mind now, especially with the audience he has. 

_Where the fuck is SHIELD?_

He understands that the Red Room is a very secretive organization, and that it’s nearly _impossible_ to find them if they don’t want to be found, but the keyword was _nearly._

SHIELD had found them once and it could find them again. With Natasha and Phil searching every nook and cranny the world contained, as well as calling in any and all favors they had, as they undoubtedly were, it wouldn’t be much longer. 

It’s just that, Clint isn’t sure he can hold out much longer. Not with the very heavy threat of blindness by fire hanging over his head. 

The door to his room swings open slowly- _or maybe the speed was just because of the pain he’s riding_ -and Schulpe stalks into view, dressed just as sharply as he had been when Clint had first met him. 

“Agent Barton,” he says with a smile, drawing out the spy’s name. “So love(ly) to…(see?)...you again.”

Clint feels a sneer slip onto his own face, not letting on how difficult it was to comprehend that simple sentence. Maybe it’s the man’s beard that is making lip reading so difficult. 

“Yeah well, can’t say the same to you,” he retorts, rolling his head to one side as he speaks. _Maybe another angle would make it easier._

Schulpe laughs and walks closer, pulling a paper from inside his suit jacket as he moves. “It seems that,” he says, holding the papers in a way so that Clint can see them clearly. “Your friends are...(catching?)..up to us. And…(?)...quickly.”

They are photos of footage from security cameras. The freeze frames have captured what SHIELD tries so desperately to hide. Phil, stalking down a hallway with a murderous glare clear on his face, even in the pixelated image. A bulge at his side that is so obviously a gun is silhouetted by the turn of his body as he ducks through a doorway is shown in the next image. Clint is clenching his teeth by the time they get to the third picture.

It’s Natasha, or at least, what they could find of her. A blur on top of a guard, who has what looks like legs wrapped around his throat. A gun is raised in one of her hands and Clint can see what she must’ve been planning to do.

Clint knows the guard didn’t leave that room alive.

“Now what we(’d?) like to know is,” Schulpe drawls, interrupting his attempts at discerning where his partners are. “Who exactly...the man?”

_What._

“They are…(?)...very (obviously?) working together, tracking you...the looks of it, but what you are going to tell…(?)...is who the man is and what he....(means?)...to the Widow.” 

_They don’t know about SHIELD?_

_Oh thank fuck._

The Red Room must be so far down on the food chain of people to inform, especially since Natasha had massacred their last batch of Widows, that they didn’t know Natasha had been recruited into another organization. 

_Maybe they just don’t believe the news that gets sent through the grapevine._ Everyone knew to at least take into account what had been passed through the grapevine that wove its way through the underworld of society from mouth to ear, mercenary to thief to informant to gang. _Or maybe they don’t think she’d join up again._

Whatever bullshit they think has happened, Clint is grateful for it.

At least it means that they are already misinformed. That makes his job of confusing them even easier. And definitely funner.

Not many would call fucking with an interrogator- _particularly one in the employment of the Red Room_ -while strung up against a wall ‘fun’, but Clint will take it where he can get it.

“I...I don’ know much,” He says, exaggerating the slur in his words. It’s not very hard, all he has to do is focus on the fog that’s still threatening to pull him under. “An-And I can’t tell you much either, but…” Clint hesitates, letting himself gulp like he’s swallowing down a secret that almost slipped out. Schulpe is leaning forward slightly as Clint begins to talk, a tiny smile appearing on his face. 

“They ain’t workin’ _together._ ”

The raw shock on Schulpe’s face that is visible for a moment- _a glorious, glorious moment_ \- was quickly washed away by the rage that follows. “ _What?_ ” He demands, spittle flying as he spits the word out. “What…(?)...you mean, they _aren’t_ work(ing?) together?”

Clint gives a small shrug, the movement hindered by his wrecked arm, and lets himself sag just the tiniest bit more, as if he can’t understand the confusion. “Tha’s all I really know, I _swear_ .” Desperation seeps into his voice as he speaks. “They ain’t workin’ together. The grapevine whispers are sayin’ they are havin’ a _competition._ ”

The man snarls in front of him, and begins to pace, each pivot more vicious than the last. “A competition?” He asks at last. “Who...he to compete...(with?)...the Widow?”

Clint sees the fury hiding behind the furrowed brows and clenched fists of his captor, and bites back the smile he can feel behind his teeth. _That’d ruin the game._ “They ain’t competing for a body count,” he explains, as if speaking to a very young child. “They’re competin’ for information. _And,_ word says that the guy is in cohorts with Ronin.”

Schulpe lets out another snarl. “He’s work(ing?) with Ronin?” He whips around toward the door and begins to give orders, each one more furious than the last. 

_Someone’s about to lose their job._ Clint grins inwardly. _I really should’ve thought of this sooner._ “C-Can I get let down now?” A grimace slides onto his face and he grit his teeth slightly. “I...I told you everythin’ I know.” 

His captor whirls back to him, eyes narrowed. “No, I (don’t?) think so. Not _yet_. For all I…(know?)...they’re looking for information...(on?)...you.”

_Damn._ His shoulders really need a break. 

Schulpe began to walk closer, a smirk on his face. “For now...(though?)...we’re just going to (?) you quiet.” He reaches inside his suit jacket, pulling a roll of leather from a pocket. He unfurls it slowly and Clint can feel dread curling in his stomach with each slow movement the man makes. “Now, don’t you…(worry?), it’ll be (?) quick.” He bends down for a moment and with the loss of a visual on his face comes a loss of knowing what’s going to happen. 

Clint waits, eyes darting around the room, latching onto the two guards at the doors, chuckling as they watch the archer struggle in his chains. They obviously know what’s coming and Clint looks for any sign of what that is on them, but all he can read from their body language is that they’re _excited._

_They’re fucking excited._

Schulpe straightens up, a small frown on his face. “Didn’t..hear what I (said?), Hawkeye?” He pauses, watching the fear flit across Clint’s face for a moment. _The game spun out of control way too quickly for comfort._ “I said…(open?) up!” He seizes Clint’s jaw, not giving him a chance to snap at his fingers, which would’ve done damage even in the agent’s sluggish state, and forces his mouth open. 

Clint lets out a grunt and jerks his head forward, aiming to slam his forehead against the other’s, but Schulpe quickly stops him, his other arm coming up and pinning him against the wall completely, forearm pressed firmly against his throat. “Ah, ah ah. Play (nice?).” 

He is choking on nothing, lungs beginning to desperately try to suck in air, only to be blocked by the pressure on his airway. He can only watch as a guard steps forward and takes Schulpe’s place in restraining Clint. Schulpe begins to sort through the leather roll, moving tools aside to get to the one under it. 

When he finally turns back, a set of pliers in one hand, black spots are beginning to appear on the edges of his vision, slowly growing larger and larger. At a signal he misses, the pressure decreases slightly, allowing Clint to greedily gulp in air, only to be sent into a bout of coughing as his lungs attempt to recover. 

Schulpe advances, a grin sliding onto his face. “Hold…(?)...steady.” Then he’s on him, and Clint can feel the metal tool fumbling around in his mouth. The man is obviously going for his tongue and the agent bucks, throwing everything he has into breaking the guard’s hold, panic being the only thought in his head, while at the same time he curls his tongue as far away from the pliers as he can. 

His captor lets out a string of curses. “Guess I(’ll?)...with (?) then!” The tool clamps down on a molar and with a vicious _twist,_ the tooth is ripped from his mouth. 

Blood quickly fills Clint’s mouth and he can feel it dribbling past his lips, but the pliers are still moving around his teeth.

There’s another sickening pop and a second molar joins the first on the floor. Schulpe steps back and looks Clint over, his smile growing at the sight of his heaving chest and purpled fingers that keep trying to clench. 

The man's lips begin to move but Clint’s too busy focusing on slowing his breathing to read what’s being said. The guard releases him and heads back to the door, greeted with claps on the back and grins from the other, leaving only Schulpe in front of him.   
  
Clint forces himself to concentrate, pushes past the throbbing in his jaw and watches him speak, only catching a few words every sentence. From what he read, the gist of it was that he’s going to get a break.

_Thank god._

Then the man walks forward again, tucking the leather roll away and pulling something else from his pocket. He quickly pops the cap off and moves closer, the syringe in his hand very clearly filled with _something._

Clint just hopes it won’t paralyze him. 

He has barely any strength left in him and can’t even manage to lean away when Schulpe sinks the needle into his neck and pushes the plunger. 

The drug hits quick and hard. 

Clint’s head is sagging before the door is open. By the time both his guards and Schulpe have left his eyelids have become too heavy to lift. When the door finally shuts Clint has been pulled under, sucked into unconsciousness like a swimmer into a riptide. 

Blood is still dribbling out of his mouth, bubbling with each breath and dripping off of his chin.

He’s strung up, arms outstretched and hands limp as he hangs from the ceiling. His chest is barely moving, the rise and fall of his shoulders being the only sign he’s still breathing. His chin is resting against his sternum and blood is still caked on the sides of his face from the effects of the sensory drugs. 

He’s left like that, barely moving and almost dead. 

And that’s how they find him. 

* * *

_November 19, 8:32 PM_

_Istanbul (Exact Location Classified)_

Fury hadn’t hesitated in approving their requests after that. It took all of thirty minutes for Phil to collect another few members to form an extraction team and meet Natasha back on the Bus. They’d spent the next few days taking down every known base affiliated with the Red Room. They hadn’t found anything. 

The redhead had begun to pull in favors, a burner phone out and pressed to her ear, the moment they left the debriefing room. Half her contacts had zero information and she made sure they understood that this was not their favor if they couldn’t tell her anything. She was very clear about what would happen to them if she found out they did, in fact, have intelligence on the Red Room’s location. 

If any of them had lied to her then she would make sure their bodies wouldn’t be found for decades.

The other half of those indebted to her had little to tell her. There were whispers underground of a new team, one led by a German military scientist gone AWOL, but they were nothing more than whispers. 

She can’t follow whispers back to their source, they’re impossible to track. Whispers travel on the winds in the underworld. 

The empty feeling next to her has only grown as days go by. She’s caught herself in the middle of turning to Clint after reading reports after reports on the Red Room’s movements over the years, wanting to ask his opinion, to ask if he sees a pattern she doesn’t, when she freezes, seeing nothing but air beside her. 

She’s caught Phil doing the same. In the middle of planning their next target with the rest of their team- _she’s barely even bothered to learn their names_ -he’s turned to his left, a smile on his face that appears reflexively whenever looking at his lovers, only for it to disappear when he remembers _who_ exactly they’re looking for. 

She can feel herself slowly falling apart the longer they go without even a trace of Clint. It’s like there’s cracks spider-webbing all over her, and the longer their archer is missing, the wider the cracks get. 

The burner phone containing her contacts, each hidden under a false name or tucked into one of the crannies in one of her many apps, is clutched in her hand. Phil is in the next room, briefing their teammates on the next location they’re hitting. 

She’s lucky he’s so good at building a team. The others don’t argue when they are sent to the opposite end of the world in chase of another dead end. They seem to understand why, exactly, the Widow and her handler are so invested in Hawkeye, and not just because Team Delta isn’t itself without a complete set. 

The phone in her hand begins to ring. 

_I haven’t heard that particular ringtone in a long time._

The number that’s flashing on her screen isn’t one she could forget. It brings to mind a dusty day in Dubai that ended in Natasha being shot and a woman revealing herself as one of Phil’s contacts. 

Not one that SHIELD knows about, if only because of the unconventional way the agent and her met. Letting a wanted mercenary go on the basis of her feeding information to you isn’t exactly admired in an intelligence agency that runs off of elimination of threats. 

Phil had lied on that report, she remembers. He’d claimed that the mercenary had killed herself in a fiery explosion that took out over three blocks of apartment buildings. 

Of course, those blocks were abandoned. 

And if one were to analyze the aftermath of the explosion, they’d find that both the size and heat perfectly matched a newly patented weapon SHIELD’s R&D had created only a few months before Phil’s failed mission. 

But with Coulson as one of Fury’s most trusted agents, no questions were asked. 

“Yes.”

There’s a shuddering breath taken over the phone and then a woman’s quiet voice responds. _“Is this the Widow?”_

Natasha narrows her eyes and shifts her stance unconsciously to a ready position, suspicion telling her to get ready to fight even with the question coming from a person who was possibly miles away. “Who’s asking?” 

_“I’m calling from the auto repair shop in Berkeley.”_

Phil taught her the code. _Good._ If he hadn’t, she might’ve hung up on her first question alone. “What do you have?”

_“I don’t have much time but I have a lot to say. Hawkeye is still in Istanbul.”_

“What.” How could they have missed him so far? They’re in the same city as him. _They’re in the same goddamned city._

_“He’s being held in an old water filtering plant. It’s on the northern edge of the city. It’s easily defensible, well protected behind concrete walls and steel doors, with a fully functioning security camera feed.”_ The woman’s voice is hurried and Natasha can hear the anxiety seeping into her words. _“I have to go. Tell Coulson that for the next three months, my debt is paid.”_

“Wait!” Natasha says, almost desperately. The Widow doesn’t show desperation, not if a gun is at her head and she’s playing Russian roulette. Phil’s informat pauses. “ _Thank_ you.”

A sigh over the phone and then it beeps, screen flashing to show that the woman has hung up and Natasha knows she is probably long gone, phone crushed underfoot. 

But the loss of an informat doesn’t matter right now. What matters is Clint. 

Without hesitating a second longer, the Widow strides back into their briefing room, a smile gracing her lips. “Phil,” she says, not wanting to wait a second longer- _because it’s Clint that’s missing, the Clint that smiled like a five year old in a candy shop when he got to pet a dog on a mission, the Clint that gave both her and Phil matching rings with an arrow carved on the inside, the Clint that is all too happy to take senior agents down a peg or five when they’re being assholes, and she won’t let anyone hurt her Clint and get away with it-_ “I’ve got a location.”

He raises an eyebrow, expression bland to anyone who doesn’t know him as well as she does. There’s worry on the furrow between his eyebrows and hope in the creases by his eyes. His shoulders have tightened the tiniest bit, anticipation running across the lines of his body. “Another one to hit?” He asks, not letting anything but a hint of surprise leak into his voice. 

The others are silently watching them, knowing full well not to interrupt.

“No.” She lets her smile widen into a grin and she knows he sees the glint of triumph in her eyes when he straightens completely, the corners of his mouth turning up in response. “A definite location, courtesy of one of your contacts.”

The next ten minutes are a blur of planning and suiting up, with ideas being bounced back and forth while they work to get every last bit of surveillance on the water plant that they can. 

The shaking that had been constant in her hands, that felt like it went right down to her bones, is gone, and the uncertainty that had been hovering in the back of her mind for the past few days has been placed with only determination and a hunger for revenge.

_I wouldn’t mind adding a couple more drops of red to my ledger today._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine is reaaally getting to me. 
> 
> Both my ability to write and my motivation.
> 
> I want to write however  
> I just stare at the computer screen for like 15 minutes before I go read fanfiction
> 
> anyone got any suggestions on how to NOT do that


	3. Chapter 3

_November 19, 9:37 PM_

_Istanbul (Exact Location Classified)_

The abandoned plant has almost no visible security, with security cameras so outdated that Phil would be surprised if they were able to pick up anything more than a grainy flash of movement. The sun had sunken below the horizon hours ago, and without lighting the buildings look all the more foreboding. 

He turns to one of their younger team members, a scientist they’d scooped up right out of the academy for his proficiency in technology. “Scan for heat signatures.” 

The younger man nods and with a few flicks of his fingers on his tablet he had a drone, almost as small as his hand, hovering in the air and then speeding right out of the open hatch of their jet. Natasha is perched by the opening, tightening the straps of gun holsters, trying to have something to do with her hands. 

Phil frowns. _It’s not like her to be so...uncertain._ “Natasha,” he says, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Talk to me.”

_Talk to me._

The simple sentence had been whispered through the comms hundreds of times, with Clint pinned down by enemy fire and Phil trying to get a location out of him, or with Natasha finding herself with a hole through her abdomen and a body underneath her. 

It never ceases to amaze him how fast his partners opened up when they know he will listen. 

They’ve been learning, teaching each other what it truly means to trust and to know without a shred of a doubt that that trust had been earned in full. Now, with almost five years between them, they could turn to each other without hesitation, knowing that the others would be there to catch them when they fall. 

She glances around the room, at the agents who are trying very hard to seem like they aren’t listening, and nods her head to the front of the jet, where they could speak unheard. She rises to her feet gracefully and leads the way, Phil following behind her. 

When they reach the controls she spins to face him. There’s tension in the high set of her shoulders, in the slightly curled fingers at her sides, as if she wants to make fists out of them but knows she doesn’t have anyone to punch quite yet. 

Natasha remains silent and he steps closer, running a gentle hand through her hair. He knows that in this moment, she needs all the comfort she can get. Neither of them ever liked the waiting period before a mission, but Clint loves it. He’d say it was because he could use the time to center himself and prepare himself for the mission, but they both knew he didn’t need to do that. He mainly used the time to either nap or coerce Phil into getting him a milkshake from the nearest run down diner in their vicinity. 

“Talk to me,” Phil says again, because he can’t take the _pain_ he can see running through her. 

“I...I just don’t want to walk into those buildings and find a body.” There is fear glinting in her eyes, although she hides it well. She’d voiced the thoughts that had been swirling around his head all day. 

_Because what if they found whatever room he was being held in and were greeted with the sight of their beloved Hawk, eyes open and lips blue, killed by a torture tactic pushed too far? Or they found him sprawled out on the ground, slaughtered in a last ditch attempt to escape, having finally given up on his partners finding him?_

He’s been missing for two months. Two months of thinking that his partners were looking for him when in reality they were swanning along, getting handsy in dark corners and under tables as they inched their ways closer to an irrelevant crime lord. 

Phil isn’t stupid, he knows that it’s because of Fury that they couldn’t begin to search for Clint as soon as he was found, but he can’t help but think that if they’re so in love, why couldn’t Phil tell that something was wrong?

Team Delta is connected in a way the other strike teams could never be. Able to read each other's bodies, knowing what was coming seconds before it even began, gave them a terrifying ability to fight as one, flowing smoothly around each other in the midst of a confrontation. 

But if they're so damn closely connected, why didn’t Phil know that Clint was being hurt? The guilt is eating him up inside, clawing its way up his throat and bringing bile surging into his mouth. 

“We _won’t_ , he whispers fiercely, gripping her hand tightly, the contact anchoring her as much as he anchored himself. “We won’t.” _Because they can’t._

* * *

The guards that their target had posted throughout the building are _jokes._ The first one that the Widow walks up to damn near drops his gun at the sight of a woman striding up to him. He’s on the floor a second later, still twitching from the aftereffects of a Widow Bite, and Phil has to hold in a laugh at his crumpled form, because it won’t do for the other agents to see this side of him. 

At SHIELD, half of the agents think of Coulson as a balding pencil pusher, while the others know him as a former Ranger who can shoot a bird- _a hawk_ -out of the sky with one shot. But none of them know this part of him. 

The part that wants to slam his foot down on the fingers of the man at his feet, just for the satisfying crunch. The part of him that got him some of the highest marks in interrogation tactics as well as torture resistance, and underwent both tests with the same bland smile on his face. 

Because, whether anyone believes it or not, Phil knows his limits for pain, and he also knows that just the right amount of pain running through him can push him harder, faster, higher. 

_That’s_ why he became an agent of SHIELD, why he became part of Team Delta. Because the high of a fight, of shooting blindly around a corner with nothing but a kevlar vest to protect him, the feeling of his fists smashing into someone’s face, the euphoric rush that comes with being in the midst of a shootout, can never be replaced. 

And so when his Widow drops a man at his feet, a vicious smile on her face that he knows is mirrored on his, he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t do anything but step over the body and into the building, raising his gun as he goes. 

The building is dimly lit, with lights on the ceiling just barely close enough for them to see more than a dozen feet in front of them until they reach the next pocket of illuminated floor and wall. 

It doesn’t slow them down. 

If anything, they move faster. 

It’s as if the guards are dressed in paper and carrying water guns. 

Technically, they are supposed to interrogate them, bring them in and learn of their next move. But if they can’t dodge then it’s not their problem. 

Natasha is ahead of him, the crackling electricity on her Bites and the vibrant color of her red hair lighting the way for him. 

A guard rushes him from a side hallway, and in one smooth move he’s swept the man’s legs out from under him and fired a bullet into his skull. Blood and brains leak from the hole in his head after his body hits the ground, making a puddle that Phil doesn’t bother to avoid, uncaring of the bloody shoe prints he’ll leave in the building. 

Natasha cuts down anyone who gets close to her, occasionally leaving a few for Phil. He doesn’t mind, because they’re fighting to get their Clint back, and if this is what it takes then so be it. 

She’s moving as smoothly as water through the air, danger lining every edge of her body as she sends three men toppling to the ground like bowling pins in a lightning fast roundhouse kick, and if the guards who haven’t reached them yet were smarter, they’d be running in the other direction. 

By the time the hallway is cleared there are dozens of bodies strewn around them, some with bullets neatly placed between their eyes and others with crushed windpipes or snapped necks. Phil knows that they aren’t all dead, that some are dying and others are just maimed, but he wouldn’t care if there’s only one left breathing. 

They took his Hawk. 

They’re getting what they deserve. 

Natasha pauses in her charge, waiting for him to catch up. She grins at him with blood stained teeth- _not her blood_ -and he smiles back, knuckles twinging slightly from the last guard who’d run at him. 

He barely made it three steps before Coulson had been on him. 

Phil straightens his suit and tucks his tie back into place. “Ready to get him out?” He asks, voice rough with the adrenaline of the fight. 

“Ready,” She holsters her gun. “Let’s go.”

They move as one deeper into the building, matching stride for stride and occasionally swing for kick when a stupider guard than usual comes sprinting out from the shadows, hoping to catch them unawares. 

If they knew anything about Team Delta, they’d know that the three of them _thrive_ in the shadows. 

They’ve reached the end of their path of carnage, having followed the map that one of their teammates had managed to create, focusing on the heat signature that matched Hawkeye and tracing a route through the blueprints of the building. 

The steel door is identical to the rest that line the walls in this hallway, and yet Phil can sense that something is different. Maybe it’s just the knowledge that his partner is on the other side of the door, potentially hurt or even dead. He can’t wait any longer. 

Moving quickly, he plants a miniature bomb on the door near the handle, a design that Phil had come to love within moments of using it for the first time, and he thanks whatever gods might be out there and listening for his foresight of stocking their plane with them. 

The bomb blows just as quietly as it has every other time he’s used it, and the door swings open a few inches, revealing nothing but a view of a concrete room. Natasha steps forward when he hesitates, because what if they _just find a body_. 

She pushes the door open further, the grating of steel scraping concrete sounding harsh in the frozen silence around them. The Widow steps into Clint’s cell and her breathing hitches-

_Oh god._

_We were too late._

Coulson slips in behind her and stares, stares at the body of his lover dangling by his wrists, blood coating his chin and the sides of his head. There’s a rush of guilt and grief bubbling up inside him and he bites down on the sob that threatens to escape. 

“We didn’t make it in time,” he rasps. 

“Phil _._ ”

_This is all my fault. I should’ve never let Fury split us up._ He knows, logically, that he could’ve never seen this coming, they’d been separated hundreds of times before, but-

This is his _job._ He _had_ to keep his partners safe, that was his role in their partnership before they got together, and even afterwards he remained the eyes in the sky, the voice over the comms feeding them everything they needed to know to get out. And now he’s failed them. 

“ _Phil_.”

“What?” His voice breaks on the word and he’s unable to look any higher than the concrete floor where Natasha’s boots are. 

“He’s alive.”

“ _What?_ ” His head snaps up and his eyes lock on the motionless figure of Clint. His blond hair is lying limply in his eyes, head slumped forward and chin resting on his chest. Burns and cuts litter his body, with occasional designs carved in places. But his chest is _moving._

“Oh my god.” He’s breathless with fear and hope as he steps forward, moving closer to the restrained agent. “He’s breathing.”

Natasha nods. “We have to get him down from there.” She gestures to the side of Clint’s neck. “He’s got an injection mark, I don’t know what they gave him, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.” 

The order in her voice snaps him back to himself and he sets himself to work, using a miniature laser to cut through the chains and manacles holding him, Natasha catching him when Phil opens the cuffs. 

Phil stoops down quickly, scanning Clint for any life threatening injuries or signs of concussions, and seeing none, scoops him up, lifting him onto his shoulders to carry him easier. “Lead the way,” he says, knowing that Natasha won’t hesitate to do what it takes to get Clint out of here. 

They move through the buildings faster than they did when they arrived, nearly sprinting to get Clint onto the jet. They burst through the main set of doors only to pause at the sight in front of them. 

The three agents they brought with them are surrounding another figure who is kneeling on the ground with his hands behind his head. One of their agents looks up. “Coulson!” He calls, pride clear in his voice. “This one was trying to run, we thought we might save him for you.”

Phil gently hands Clint to Natasha, not missing the way his agents eye the blond haired man for a moment before their gazes flicker back to him, and strides forward. “We’ll keep him for interrogation,” he says, pulling a pair of cuffs out of his jacket. “Hold his hands behind his back.”

The man is quickly restrained and Phil haules him to his feet, ready to lead him onto their jet when he stops. “What did you say?” he asks, voice dangerously quiet.

The prisoner repeats himself raising his mumble to a volume that the rest of them can hear clearly. “What I said, _Suit_ ,” he repeats, a nasty grin breaking out over his face. “Is that your hawk screamed most beautifully, and I’d love to get to have another go at him.”

Phil growls and yanks the man closer by his collar, his hands shaking with the rage he can feel pulsing through him. “The only reason you’re still _alive_ is because we need someone to interrogate.” The menace is clear in his voice. “It would be in your best interest if you stopped talking, _right now._ ”

He raises an eyebrow. “What, or you’ll cut out my tongue? You know,” he continues, almost conversationally. “We almost cut his tongue out.” He nods towards Clint. “Unfortunately we only got a few teeth instead. He was too... _squirmy._ ”

_Fury can find his own goddamn prisoner to interrogate._

Coulson draws his gun and presses the muzzle right above his waistband. “I take it back.” He shuts up, face going white as he feels the weapon pushing against him. “We don’t need to interrogate you.”

Then he empties his clip into the man’s stomach. 

He crumples in Phil’s grip, and he lets the man crash to the floor, screaming soundlessly as the pain hit him. Blood quickly seeps through his shirt, running off his body to make a puddle beneath him as he convulses. 

He can feel the horror of the other agents focused on him, because while they know he kills, they’ve never _seen_ it happen. 

Phil watches dispassionately as the man’s lips form the word _please_ , blood bubbling out of the corners of his mouth. There’s a shuffling behind him and he listens to Natasha set Clint down softly propping him up so that he doesn’t choke, and walks to Phil’s side. 

“We can’t leave him here if he has the potential of surviving.” Her mouth is curved into a smile as she speaks.

“I know.”

The man turns his pleading to Natasha, perhaps thinking she might be merciful and save him for interrogation. She draws her own gun and flicks the safety back. 

“That’s for hurting Clint, you _fucking_ idiot.” The bang cuts off his watery gasps and Natasha smiles down at his body. She turns back to Phil and raises one perfect eyebrow. “Ready to go?”

He nudges the body with his foot and nods. “Let’s go.” 

Phil picks Clint up with the same gentleness he’d used to pass him to Natasha and leads the way into the jet, barely stopping to holster his gun as he goes. The redhead is only a few steps behind and neither of them look back, waiting for the other agents to board before taking off. 

He straps Clint to one of the chairs, making sure that he was secure and as comfortable as he could be before moving to the controls. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

There are no survivors left in the water plant, with any not killed immediately succumbing to their wounds hours later. 

Fury never gets his interrogation and by now he knows better than to request a mission report from Hawkeye.

Not with the state both he and his partners are in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't read a whole lot of BAMF Phil so I had to write it instead. 
> 
> Lmk what y'all think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws teeny tiny finale chapter at you*
> 
> *runs*

_ November 19, 10:05 PM _

_ Exact Location Classified _

Clint doesn’t wake up with a jolt and that’s the first thing that tells him something is wrong. 

He floats back to consciousness, brain and senses slowly coming back online. He keeps his body limp and his face relaxed, and begins to run through a body scan. He clenches each muscle group slightly, waiting for sharp flashes of pain to warn him of the damage. 

Both arms are as good as before, with his shoulders screaming at him in protest of this new position, never mind that they have both been set and wrapped by someone. His hands remain untouched and his jaw throbs in time with his headache. 

There’s some kind of restraint across his chest, securing him to the chair his captors have moved him to, but they stupidly haven’t done  _ anything _ to prevent him from lashing out with either his fists or his feet. 

_ Feet!  _ His aching fingers shout. 

Maybe they thought their drug would last longer than it did. 

Or maybe they expected cooperation after giving him medical attention, as if he’d be  _ grateful _ . 

Footsteps are moving around him quietly, and he can hear someone shifting slightly to the right of him.  _ Not a prisoner,  _ his senses supply. There is no extra shifting in the row of seats of straps rubbing against someone, so clearly they are not restrained. 

There’s low murmurs from them and Clint curses them silently for the loss of most of his hearing. 

_ When Nat and Phil get here, they are going to be so pissed.  _

He waits until the person next to him shifts just a little _ too far  _ towards him, and lunges, wrapping one arm around their neck and forcing his eyes open in the same breath. He ignores the flash of pain that throbs through his hands and tightens his grip. 

Blinking rapidly is doing very little to clear the fuzz from his vision but from what he can tell by both movement and sounds, is that whoever is holding him captive right now is very panicked. Clint lets a grin carve its way across his face, the smile the tiniest bit too sharp to be anything but dangerous. 

The person in his grip has long since stopped struggling and are now breathing deeply, the arm he has around their abdomen shifting with each inhale and exhale. 

He blinks again and lets a string of swears slip from his mouth when the motion does nothing but aggravate his headache further. 

There’s another vague murmur, this time from someone right in front of him. They’re crouching down and have their hands raised to shoulder height, the colors of their palms uninterrupted by any sleek black or grey of a weapon. 

Of course, they could always have something strapped to their belt or leg, but the fact that there is nothing in their hands helps him relax by a degree. It shouldn’t be comforting him, the fact that there is nothing in their hands. He’s seen Nat and Phil move so fast that he didn’t know what was happening until it was over.  _ Hell _ , he could move that fast. 

Although in this state, not likely.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Clint says, hopefully loud enough for them to hear him. Judging by the vibrations in his throat, he’s pretty sure they can. “You are going to let me go and you are not going to follow me.” There’s a noise in response to his statement and he only tightens his grip on the person he’s pulled against him. “If you don’t,” he continues, “Then I will snap their neck. Do you understand?”

Nothing, and then the person in front of him comes closer. Clint stiffens, ready to through his bargaining chip at them, then freezes when they extend a hand. 

He shies away as best he can, squishing himself into the seat and tilting his head away, but they aren’t deterred. They tap something against his cheek and pause, before doing it again. It’s something vaguely dark, with a metallic feel against his skin. 

Clint adjusts his hold as best as he can, and extends his left hand forward, mindful of the fact that his left has more broken fingers. 

The object is carefully placed in his hand and the person backs away, their blob of a head staying pointed in his direction. 

He rolls it around in his palm a few times and then runs the pads of his more moveable fingers along it.  _ A...pen? Do they expect me to scribble out my conditions of escape or some shit?  _ He lets it rest in his hand for a moment longer-

It clicks. 

“...Phil?” The word rasps its way out of his throat and he loosens his grip on the person under his arm, hardly noticing when they scramble away. 

Phil is taking their place a moment later, slowly wrapping his arms around Clint’s bruised ribs and burying his face in the archer’s shoulder. Clint returns the gesture, wrinkling Phil’s suit underneath his clutching hands. 

Another presence joins them, her fingers weaving their way into his matted hair and gently scratching at his scalp. He leans into her, dragging Phil with him, and lets her warmth envelope him. 

They stay like that, his partners bodies wrapped around him, stopping him from glimpsing anything outside their reunion. 

He doesn’t mind. 

He’s never felt safer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmk what you think!!
> 
> (thanks for the lovely amount of kudos. *nice*)

**Author's Note:**

> Lmk if I missed any tags or triggers to tag
> 
> Leave a kudos and/or comment if you liked it!! (Or any advice/point out spelling mistakes) 
> 
> ❤️


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